More children would be taken into care if not for domestic violence shelters

Covid-19 and the various lockdowns had 'shone a brighter light on domestic violence'. File picture

More children would have been taken into care were it not for the role of domestic violence shelters over the course of the pandemic, according to a solicitor who is now providing training to managers of refuges on the mandated reporting of cases in which children may be at risk.

The comments were made by Sonya Bruen, a former social worker and now a solicitor with legal firm Mason, Hayes and Curran, which acts for Tusla in some child care proceedings.

Ms Bruen said in recent months in the north east where she works, almost half the childcare proceedings in which a child has been taken into State care featured domestic violence as a factor.

A course formulated by Ms Bruen and Dr Stephanie Holt, head of the school of social studies at Trinity College Dublin, began on a pilot basis earlier this year and has now been approved by Safe Ireland, with Tusla funding facilitating a wider rollout that will mean key workers, as well as managers of refuges, will be able to avail of it.

A rise in reported incidents of domestic violence has been a feature of the pandemic, as has the increase in mandated reports to Tusla from the managers of domestic violence refuges where they feel a child's welfare and safety is at risk.

Ms Bruen said the six-week course showed managers and others that abuse does not have to be physical for a mandated report to be sent to Tusla flagging concerns. 

She said statistics provided to Tusla for last December and January confirmed that about 50% of all cases in court for care applications or extensions of existing care applications related to domestic violence as at least one of the reasons for care. She said that trend had continued.

"Refuges have been absolutely amazing," she said. "They have stepped in where a child might have had to go in to care otherwise."

She said where there is a protective parent, taking a child into care would be "absolutely a measure of last resort" and that the course, which runs for six weeks, gives a comprehensive overview of the balance of parental and children's rights in difficult situations sometimes faced within refuges.

"One of the bigger things we are working on in the course is that a child does not have to be physically injured to make these referrals.

"It may not be violent, but it is traumatic."

A rise in reported incidents of domestic violence has been a feature of the pandemic, as has the increase in mandated reports to Tusla from the managers of domestic violence refuges where they feel a child's welfare and safety is at risk. Picture: iStock/PA

Recent monthly reports from Tusla show a rise in the number of referrals overall to the Child and Family Agency in which emotional abuse is cited.

Safe Ireland said the course was important as following the recent amendment to the Irish Constitution (Article 42A) and the introduction of a range of new child protection legislation – such as the Children First Act 2015 and the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 – child protection practitioners have identified the need for further training to carry out their roles and responsibilities within the current legal framework.

Dr Holt said Covid-19 and the various lockdowns had “shone a brighter light on domestic violence”, adding: “I would not be certain it increased but it may have intensified”.

She said the issue was now more readily understood and this, alongside training, meant more referrals were inevitable. However, she said services and the funding for them still needed to be improved.

“The domestic violence sector has been living on a wing and prayer for so long,” she said.

Dr Holt also said people needed to understand that for children, domestic violence was not necessarily a specific incident but rather something they lived with, characterised by fear and worry.